Current Mood: Ugh

Things are okay, I suppose. I am about as busy in all aspects of my spiritual life as I usually am during the summer, which is to say it seems to be a bit lighter than it is during the rest of the year.

In vaguely tracking my past few years, it is entirely unsurprising that Sekhmet has gotten louder during the summer—She seems to do that with some regularity for me. Of course, She’s been louder since January-ish and I haven’t really been responding. The past few months, though, She’s solidly shown up and brought friends in the form of Her consort, Ptah, Sobek, and Sekhet.

I will admit that I have not been terribly gracious, at least inwardly and due to things I’ll mention in a minute, and my reaction has largely been ‘are you fucking kidding me?’. I know, not very welcoming of me, but I really didn’t expect or, honestly, need Her and Her crew crashing into my life at this very moment. My house is already crawling with altars and shrines and I really need more divinities peering at me like I need a shotgun blast to the foot, which is to say not at all.

But, They have shown up and been patient enough not to beat my impertinent, surly ass so it follows that I should do something, yeah? I mean, I could not but I don’t need the Lion-Headed Lady roaring in my ear so I guess I can be hospitable and sociable. Conveniently [or not at all], Wep Ronpet is calculated to be in just under a month from now for my location which gives me the perfect opportunity to do something nice and hopefully with the appropriate attitude. I don’t yet know what it will entail beyond installing an altar for all of Them in my living room and trooping out onto a hill at fuck-off o’clock in the morning on Wep Ronpet to say some prayers and make a few offerings.

In another unexpected twist, a variety of dead have shown up in force for me and I am feeling at least a little less bitchy about this. My blood ancestors have been making some noise and I need to step up my game in that direction, especially since They have been lending some manner of protection to me these days. They don’t seem to care how I step up my game, but please won’t I?

The ancestors that show up for me are all female with one notable exception, all of my matrilineal line, and all hilariously fancy-lady, which I am decidedly NOT in any possible extension of the idea. The most interesting part is the matrilineal part. I basically ejected and divorced my paternal ancestors a handful of years ago after they took umbrage that I wasn’t going to be a woman, wasn’t getting married, wasn’t popping out the babies, and got decidedly nasty about all of this, in the form of trying and almost succeeding in dismantling my career. I told Them that They could either have me as I am or not at all, and They took the not at all option and were summarily kicked the fuck out.

When the Ladies showed up, I sort of gave the paternal troublemakers the eyeball and said ‘want back in?’. They turned up their noses and sniffed in distaste, noting that I wasn’t really of their blood anyway so it was no matter. This gave a big, glaring confirmation to the theory I had been chewing on in terms of my family of origin—I don’t believe my paternal grandfather (the only male ancestor to come for me) was his father’s child, which makes me only physically related to half of that side of the family by a comparative thread.

On the flip side of the family, I am of my ancestors’ blood and carry a lot of the spiritual gifts found there, but I am a changeling and am not technically Theirs, either. However, They don’t seem to care at all. They also don’t care about me being trans or queer or being involved in spiritual or religious practices that decidedly are not things They did in life. So far, the Ladies are pretty cool which is at least doesn’t leave me any more surly. In life, one of Them maintained that St. Joan of Arc talked to her regularly and occasionally ‘lived in her’, and another was instrumental in bringing theosophy to the United States, which leads to a surprising amount of common language between us.

That’s not the only Dead twist, though. I started at a new program site a few months ago that is a huge old Victorian that’s been hanging around for several hundred years. It’s been a program for about 50 years and before that was lord knows what. In my second or third week, I was exhausted and took a nap on the couch during my [graveyard] shift and dreamed of a legion of Dead eagerly gathering around me while I slept. Several of Them came waltzing through the living room while I dozed and scared the fucking bejesus out of me because who expects dead people to walk through their place of employment?

They seem largely benevolent and are thrilled to pieces that there is someone there who can see and hear Them. At least a half dozen showed up in the initial parade and They are incredibly diverse—women, men, children—and OLD. A bunch of the women wore super dated gowns and spoke in a dialect of English that isn’t native to my area and hasn’t been in at least a century. I’m not entirely sure what They want yet because I haven’t asked and haven’t slept there since, but I know that They are horrified at some of the things that have happened in Their home while it has been a program and that it is sort of a Beetlejuice situation—They once lived in the house as a whole, but They have steadily been pushed into the basement and then very specific parts of the basement as a result of some of the unhappy things happening. I get the distinct sense [and had it confirmed] that I am not the first spiritual worker to work as a staff person there, but whomever else They twisted the ear of is long gone. So there’s that.

The Lwa have been more or less quiet this summer, lending at least in part to the fact that Manmi is down in Haiti doing kanzo and other things. I told Them before she left that They really needed to keep Their stuff manageable without her presence, or manageable with the help of one of her children, until she returns.

To be bluntly honest, though, I haven’t gone seeking Them out. I haven’t sought out any of my divinities, really. I’ve done basic tending for some of Them, but this past week was the first time I have lit up the Lwa’s altar since late May, I think.

Why? I have spent much of the summer being a surly and sullen asshole, at least in regards to my spiritual life. There’s no particular reason why I’ve had such a crap attitude—nothing has been especially hard/harder than usual and I am not suffering any more than normal—but I have such a case of spiritual bitchface. There’s no real better way to put it, I don’t think. I’m not having a crisis of faith or a dark night of the soul, just a case of spiritual and religious ‘ugh’. Like, I look at my altars and go ‘really?’. I don’t even want to talk to any of Them or do anything. After close to ten years of knowing that the divinities are mucking around in my life, I think I sort of deserve some spiritual bitchface time, but…

I know this is the road to ruin, so I think this blog post is me telling on myself and making the first move to get back in the damn saddle. I have work and Work to do, a lot of it, and I know I can’t do any of it without Them or while I am being bitchy. It’s time to light everything up and pray for willingness and help adjusting my attitude before I get my ass in trouble. I haven’t been mouthy or purposefully disrespectful, but some of Them are not known for Their patience and I would prefer not to push the envelope too far.

So, that’s why there has been relative radio silence. There’s no use in hoping that things will change because I know that, if things are to be different, I have to change them unless I want Them to grab me by the ankles and start shaking.

Here, have a song [with some NSFW lyrics] in honor of spiritual bitchface by lyrical masters Anti-Nowhere League: